In recent years, for example, along with an increase in the capacity of recording media such as a memory cards employing nonvolatile memory, hard disks serving as magnetic disks, and so forth, the number of image files which can be recorded in a recording medium has increased markedly.
Now, in order to play a desired image file from many image files recorded in a recording medium, it is necessary to search the desired image file thereof, and the search time necessary for this search increases along with an increase in image files recorded in the recording medium.
Consequently, a management method of image files has been proposed wherein a directory is created on a recording medium based on a shooting date when an image of an image file was photographed, and the image file of the image photographed on the corresponding shooting date is stored in the directory thereof (e.g., see Patent Document 1).
According to this management method, a user can readily search a desired image based on a shooting date, and also can readily perform operations such as creating index images (thumbnails) in photographed order, and displaying these.
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-96582